Five years have passed since the Sunshine Skyway bridge...

May 9, 1985|By United Press International

ST. PETERSBURG — Five years have passed since the Sunshine Skyway bridge disaster that killed 35 people, but time hasn't been kind to former harbor pilot John Lerro. He was at the pinnacle of his 20-year career at sea May 9, 1980, when he took the wheel of the Summit Venture. He was guiding the 608-foot freighter 40 miles through the narrow, winding shipping channel in Tampa Bay, bound for the Port of Tampa, when the ship sheared off a piling supporting a huge section of the towering bridge.

Today, he teaches cadets at a New York maritime college. Although glad to have a job, he said he's ''living like an animal,'' frustrated and ''screwed up.''

Lerro still struggles to pull his life together, a life that crumbled like the bridge. Gone is his career, his ''reason for getting up.'' He's haunted by the nightmare of smashing the bridge and watching it collapse. The sight won't fade of seven vehicles, including a Greyhound bus with 26 aboard, falling 15 stories from the broken span. And he's fighting the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis, a disease diagnosed 18 months after the accident that cost him his license.

''It's a miserable existence,'' said Lerro, 42. ''I spent thousands of hours thinking about that day. Thousands of hours. Try-